Another minute and he doesn't love you
by Ace of Emeralds
Summary: Rory and old!Amy discuss waiting and why they're both sorry. Spoilers for "The Girl Who Waited"


**I have officially changed my OTP. I am now whole-heartedly shipping Amy/Rory and I'm celebrating it with... angst. I don't even know.**

**So, a fic about old!Amy and Rory where they discuss waiting and why they're both sorry. **

**SPOILERS FOR "THE GIRL WHO WAITED"**

**Warnings: Angst like whoa. **

Rory looked over at the woman, who was Amy and not Amy and asked her, "Why? You'll not die, you'll never have existed. You'll be Amy again - I mean, the one who we left here, all those years ago. Why don't you want that?"

Amy looked up. She felt keenly aware of every line, wrinkle, sag and grey hair as she looked into her husband's young and handsome face. She felt every day that she had waited and hoped weighing on her and then, even worse, the days that she had stopped hoping and started surviving.

13,262 days. 318,288 hours. 18,697,280 minutes.

And she could feel every single one and she could feel exactly how each one had changed her and made her older, wiser, harder, more bitter and so much colder.

Somewhere in a dusty corner of her mind that she hadn't looked into in almost twenty years, she could feel the girl she used to be, telling her to take this chance and run with it, be mad, impossible Amy Pond in the TARDIS again, the girl who ran off with an alien on the night before her wedding and never stopped running.

She had promised herself that she wouldn't do it because somewhere in the back of her mind, there was a clock ticking. It was telling her, another minute and another and another and another; another minute gone by that they didn't save you.

_Another minute and he doesn't love you. Another minute and you're old and grey. Another minute and you're angry and bitter. Another minute and it'll never be the same. Another minute and you'll never be _her _again. Another minute and it's her they want. Another minute and they'll break your heart. _

_Another minute and another and another and another and another._

Amy looked at Rory and said, "I don't want it because being here alone all this time has made me understand a lot of things, Rory. It made me see that I'm not a little girl anymore and that I can't keep running and expecting that the world will just stop and wait until I'm finished. Sometimes things happen to trip you up and the world won't stop. I wrote on that door that I'm waiting. I'm not waiting anymore, I'm just surviving. I'm trying to keep up with the world so I don't get left behind again."

Her husband (but, of course, he didn't marry her, he married the girl she used to be. Different time, different place, different person) huffed and looked intently at her. She tried not to blush as she saw his eyes take in all of her.

"Were you lonely, Amy? Did you miss us?" he asked, still staring at her like it was the most important thing he would ever do, asking her these questions. Amy refrained from rolling her eyes with extreme difficulty.

"Of course I was lonely. Of _course _I missed you. And when I stopped waiting, I still did but then I was alone, not lonely. What people don't understand is that waiting isn't romantic, it isn't some gesture of 'oh I love you so, I'll wait until the end of time to see your face again and then everything will be perfect!' It's still hard, it's still life, it's still reality. It gets cold and days go by slowly. Slower than they've ever gone by before. I missed you, love. Do you miss her now?"

Rory's eyes widened and he looked away from her for the first time in minutes. "Yes," he said, "I do miss her. You're her but you're just... not. I don't care that you're old, I'm not that shallow. I care that suddenly I'm here and you're different and I wasn't here to see you change. I stayed the same when I waited for you."

Amy flinched as she was reminded of another life, when Rory waited two thousand years for her, guarding the pandorica.

"That was different," she muttered. "Was it?" he challenged, raising his eyebrows.

"Yes. You didn't have to hope and let days go by, losing all your hope. You didn't have to wake up and think, 'maybe today, maybe this time' for years and years. You knew exactly when I was coming back and all you had to do was wait. I didn't ever know if you would come back! You knew you would see me again. I had no clue!"

Rory almost hurled himself away, with what was half a growl and half a shout of anger. When he turned back to face her there were tears on his cheeks. He strode back over to her, face filled with anger and sadness and disappointment and he pulled her into his arms.

"I'm sorry, Amy," he whispered into her ear. "I'm so, so sorry."

She put her arms around his waist and just let herself feel him. "I know you are. I know you're sorry."

_Another minute and he doesn't love you. Another minute and nothing's the same. Another minute and you won't get your happy ending._

_Another minute and another and another and another and another. _

"I'm sorry too," she murmured, voice cracking.


End file.
